May 2022

LGGS MAY 2022

CARE CONTRIBUTE CHALLENE

WELCOME Welcome to our May Newsletter.

GCSE and A-level exams have started and we would like to praise our students for the sensible and focused approach they are showing. We wish them all the very best over the next few weeks.

I would like to pay tribute to our Year 13 leavers who have been through so much over the last thirty months and of course did not take external exams in Year 11. They have been such a supportive year group, always prepared to help others in our school community and have shown considerable resilience and determination themselves. The Sixth Form Leadership Team have been fantastic ambassadors for LGGS and I would like to thank them for all their hard work. We now welcome our new team, alongside a plethora of other leadership posts in Year 12.

We have received the very good news that we have been successful in two bids to improve accommodation at LGGS, one bid will enable us to repair windows in main school and then another much larger bid of over half a million pounds to install a much needed new heating system.

Mrs Jackie Cahalin, Headteacher

ONLINE REGISTRATION FOR 2023 ENTRY IS NOW OPEN You can complete our online form to register for the Admissions Tests by visiting the school’s Admissions page.

Closing date for registration: 12 noon on Friday 9th September 2022.

The date for the Entrance Tests: Saturday 24th September 2022.

As you can see Year 12 have risen to the challenge of taking on additional responsibilities and involving themselves in the school community. We wish them well in their new roles. There are also plenty more opportunities including leading a society and being involved in specific projects working with younger students.

SIXTH FORM LEADERSHIP TEAM HEAD GIRL

Frances Archer

DEPUTY HEAD GIRLS DEPUTY HEAD GIRL (Wellbeing) DEPUTY HEAD GIRL (Academic) DEPUTY HEAD GIRL (Equality)

Adeola Adegunwa Rozalind Pollard Tirtha Desai

ASSISTANT HEAD GIRLS: ASSISTANT HEAD GIRL (Sixth Form Council) ASSISTANT HEAD GIRLS (Charities & Events) ASSISTANT HEAD GIRLS (Transition)

Erica Pollard Roseanna Sharples Daisy Hodges Emily Armstrong Rebecca Jacob

SIXTH FORM SPORTS LEADERSHIP TEAM SPORTS CAPTAIN DEPUTY SPORTS CAPTAIN ASSISTANT SPORTS CAPTAIN: COACHING AND MENTORING ASSISTANT SPORTS CAPTAIN: PE COUNCIL SIXTH FORM SPORTS TEAM LEADERS: YEAR 7 AND 8 AMBASSADORS KS3 PUPIL VOICE GYMNASTIC AND DANCE CAPTAINS FOOTBALL CAPTAIN NETBALL CAPTAIN

Fay Bird Hannah Giles Poppy Sugden Abi Fisher Lauren Airey & Hannah Austin Sumayya Yaseen Grace Ip & Scarlett Harper Maisie Coates Niamh Callan

SIXTH FORM HOUSE LEADERSHIP TEAM AALBORG HOUSE CAPTAIN DEPUTIES Sports Captain Charity Leader

Ria Prasad Angi Chen, Radhika Agrawal & Eleanor Helm Amy- Jane Hodgson Lakshmi Binu

Sports Captain Deputy Sports Captain House Charity Lead House Charity Deputy

Anna Bousfield Blythe Holmes & Aru Chavali Lily O'Sullivan Olivia Hanson Momina Akmal Matilda Capper

LUBLIN HOUSE CAPTAIN DEPUTIES

PERPIGNAN HOUSE CAPTAIN DEPUTIES Sports Captain Deputy Sports Captains Charity Team

RENDSBURG HOUSE CAPTAIN DEPUTIES

Florence Carter Manahil Malik, Heba Sultan, Khushi Parikh & Zoe Naylor Kate Armer Kate Broadbent & Jess Loxam Ruby Gibbie, Rosa Piacentini-Kemp & Anna Eastham

Niena Nisanth Kairavi Kumar & Charlotte Cassidy Lucy Hayashi Esme Parker & Laura Feruzi Anna Putland, Evie Scanlon & Shivangi Batra Abigail Morse & Nabihah Absar Laura Hacking & Ria Herlekar Lily Blach-Davies

Sports Captain Deputy Sports Captains Charity Team Year 7 Mentors Year 8 Mentors Year 9 Mentor Key Stage 3 House participation co-ordinator Maria Reji

WELCOME FROM THE HEAD GIRL LGGS provides a safe environment to stretch yourself to try new things and teaches you to make the most of the opportunities available. I have learnt to face challenges with the knowledge that there is help and support all around me.

Frances Archer, Head Girl 2022-2023

LOCKDOWN CHRONICLES After many interruptions three resilient Chronicle Teams have persevered through lockdowns, social distancing rules and isolations to bring you this trip down memory lane.

The documents chronicle the most unusual of times and the spirit of LGGS to rise again and find what matters even when things are tough. These documents may not look like the usual polished Chronicle but they come with heart and soul and we are sure you will enjoy them both. The original team has since left school and the second team have just started their A-level Study Leave.

A hearty thank you goes out to the current 2021-22 team who have been able to make sense of the original editorial intentions.

Sit back and enjoy and forgive our mistakes; we all did our best to bring you some LGGS traditional JOY. NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE ON THE NEWS AREA OF OUR SITE

FAREWEL & SEE YOU SOON At the end of this half term our Librarian Mrs Kathy Edge is retiring.

I am delighted to say that she will not be leaving us completely as she will still be helping with our extra curricular programmes, in particular the joint cadet force. However, she will first be taking a well deserved holiday!

Mrs Edge has been a fantastic L ibrarian and a very well liked and respected colleague. She has put the library at the heart of LGGS. She has shown unwavering commitment to the importance of reading for pleasure. For many students the library is their favourite place at LGGS. The huge numbers who visit the library and borrow books is also testament to Mrs Edge’s great work. She has been able to attract so many well-known authors to the school, engaged the whole school community in World Book Day and introduced many new projects such as the Y6 to Y7 transition reading scheme.

2nd Lt. Edge

INDIVIDUAL STUDENT NEWS Many congratulations to Year 9 student Eva Woodcock.

Eva has been offered a Senior Associate place with the Royal Ballet School, starting in September 2022.

She was one of hundreds that auditioned for one of only 10 places offered at the Birmingham centre. This means Eva will enter her fourth year of training with the Royal Ballet School every week, as she was a Junior Associate and is currently a Mid Associate there.

Eva has had a very busy year.

She was successful in auditions for the Royal Ballet School Easter Intensive and attended two days in Covent Garden, London over the

Easter holidays. This is in addition to her usual intensives with the Northern Ballet School in Leeds. She has also been offered a residential place on the Yorkshire Ballet Seminar for the Summer.

Well done to Eva for all heard work and commitment. Her intensive training programme which involves spending every night training in either Manchester or Leeds has certainly paid off.

Year 11 student Rebecca Raine won at Royal Windsor Horse Show earlier this month. What a fantastic achievement. Royal Windsor is the UK’s largest outdoor premier Show and takes place in the private grounds of Windsor Castle. On the

National circuit this is one of the top three shows to win and Rebecca won the Mountain and Moorland Working Hunter Pony class, riding Carrownurlaur Johnny.

Year 10 student Sofia continues to go from strength to strength with her golfing success. She has successfully retained her NW England Regional U18place on the squad. At the Lancashire Schools U16 Championship at Ashton and Lea Golf Club earlier this month, she brought the trophy home to LGGS with the lowest gross score at 78. Sofia then went on to represent LGGS in the Northern English Schools Championship at Longhirst Golf Club where she finished fourth. As one of the top five players she now goes on to players then go on to qualify to represent her school and county at the National u18 finals at Gog Magog, in Cambridgeshire on 27th June. Also, as she is the current Lancashire U16 Girls Champion she will represent LGGS at the National U16 schools final at Chesterfield on 18th July. We wish her continued success.

WOLF BROTHER MICHELE PAVER Years 7 & 8 students were joined on 28th April by author Michelle Paver to find out about the stone age, the period during which her books are set, her travels and even how animal skins are used for survival. All our students were enthralled.

I was absolutely overjoyed when it was announced the Michelle Paver author visit was not only for the Year eights but the Year sevens as well!

It was great - she told us all about her travels and research for her wonderful Wolf Brother series.

We learned about making friends with wolves and survival in the far north, we were even told what parts of a seal are used for what! ( Not your traditional author visit). As for Michelle Paver herself she was lovely and showed everyone relics from the stone age and her travels. I love her books and I was devastated when I discovered choir practice meant I couldn't see her. Luckily the work of some lovely people ensured I could see her and then walk up to the priory escorted by Mrs Brown.

Overall, it was wonderful! Thanks so much for reading! Lyra Knight, Year 7.

Read more about Michele Paver

YEAR 9'S ARTEFACTS FROM THEIR EXTENDED READING PROJECTS We were delighted to hold the first ever Extended Reading Project exhibition in the Main Hall this half-term. This has enabled our Year 9 students to showcase the hard work and effort that has gone into their individual projects over the course of the autumn and spring terms.

Having chosen an area of interest, all students were required to read a text of their choice, set themselves a question to answer, and then present their findings to their classmates.

Topics this year included: • How does the character of Lyra Belacqua grows in both His Dark Materials and The Book of Dust • How is diversity represented in the works of Leigh Bardugo?

• How is South Asian culture represented in western literature.

• How closely does the film adaptation of The Hobbit follow descriptions in the novel?

As well as a formal presentation, students were required to create an artefact to reflect some of their findings and it was these artefacts that formed the centrepiece of our exhibition. It was wonderful to see it all on display and to note the interest and enthusiasm from Year 9 for the work of their peers - we look forward to seeing what Year 8 will produce in twelve months time! Mr J Grundy

"We have never done anything like the extended reading project before and really enjoyed the opportunity to showcase freedom, independence and creativity within our school work." Year 9 students

EAST ASIAN STUDIES COMPETITION

Year 10-12 students were invited to take part in the University of Sheffield’s East Asian Studies creative writing competition on the theme of ‘How East Asia has influenced life in the UK’.

They were asked to either write an essay or a creative piece looking at how aspects

Sakura, Sakura Drinking up the clouds it spews out cherry blossoms Yoshino Mountain.

Wind blows they scatter and it dies fallen petals Petals falling unable to resist the moonlight Sakura, sakura they fall in the dreams of sleeping beauty Yosa Buson Shivering in the mid-March breeze, I wrapped my hand around my mug of tea, the

of East Asian culture have been appropriated and adapted in the UK, for example by focussing on political and cultural relations between the UK and East Asian countries (Japan, China, and Korea), or examining particular East Asian cultural imports to the UK. We are delighted that

delicate warmth spreading through my fingertips. I sighed.

Although Spring was fast approaching and the sun had actually risen by the time I woke up for work, the typical British, biting cold still chased the atmosphere. With my free hand, I reached forwards to draw back the curtains of my living room in the hope of letting the weak morning light bleed through the window.

That was when I saw Yua again - sitting at her window as always, lovingly arranging her flowers.

LGGS students Lola Greenan in Year 11 and Eshaal Zuberi in Year 12 were both selected as competition winners with two very different but equally insightful pieces.

Lola produced a thoughtprovoking interview on China’s single child policy and the influence of Chinese adoption in the UK, whilst Eshaal penned a beautiful creative story exploring the character and memories of Yua, a Japanese immigrant living in the UK, told by the voice of a kind neighbour seeking to give her friendship. Both students were winners of a £25 Amazon voucher and have been invited to attend a cultural workshop run by the University of Sheffield. Huge congratulations to Eshaal and Lola!

You can read an extract below.

Ms Kate Whitehouse She was a beautiful, old woman; dark, kind eyes, the colour of melted chocolate, that wrinkled at the corners when she smiled, and long, plaited grey hair that often seemed to gleam like silver in the sunlight. As if it had always been that way.

I observed her wistfully - a little longer than would seem polite and was reminded rather unwelcomingly of my late grandmother. Oh, how I missed her. How I missed home. A year ago, I had gotten a job opportunity in London, so I had packed my suitcases, jumped on a train and brought with me nothing more than my mother’s carefully packed sandwiches and her love.

EVENTS COMING SOON You are invited to an exhibition of GCSE & A-level work at Lancaster Girls’ Grammar School on Friday on 17th June from 4.30pm - 6.30pm.

Entrance through Queen Street, all welcome. Find out more.

This event is open to everyone to enjoy. From couch potatoes to serious road runners!

The course, based around the surrounding areas of LGGS it is open to young, old and all those in between. Find out more and register.

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